OBJECTIVES : Medical Devices and in particular large medical capital equipment, are important tender businesses. However, organizations struggle to capture and combine all the relevant information to drive tender strategy. This leads to sub-optimal tender strategy and repeated tender loss. The objective of this study is to use combined survey data, to better understand historic purchase decision criteria across large medical equipment tenders.

METHODS : In order to gather data a standardized survey (win/loss study) was designed for each large medical capital equipment type, including X-Ray, MRI, SPECT/PET and anesthesia delivery machines. A list of historic hospital tenders was shared by the manufacturer. The survey was conducted via telephone interviews with tender committee members who were influential in the final purchase decision. All interviews were audio recorded and analyzed using in-vivo coding. A meta-analysis was performed combining 15 numerical and coded questions across the different studies.

RESULTS : In total 11 win/loss studies were conducted with a total of 205 tender committee members interviews. Main findings on purchase triggers indicate that product quality improvement (58%), product features improvements (31%) and increased procedure volumes (20%) are mentioned as top reasons. Tender committee members use company sales representatives (80%), and peer-to-peer (63%) as main information sources. A physician is always present at the tender committee (98%) and holds the largest influence power (54%) on final purchase decision. The inclusion of a technician and administrator is also common (71%, 70%), but with lower influence power (20%, 22%). The top reasons for granting a final purchase, product performance (78%), price (45%), and customer service (20%) are mentioned.

CONCLUSIONS : This study provides contemporary real-world evidence on the tender process and decision making across large medical capital equipment tender businesses. Based on detailed analysis of win/loss data, manufacturers can better align their customer buying journey.